The John Birch Society and Grassroots Right-Wing Mobilization (1965)

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Here is part of one of these meetings. Seven Sutton Road, Needham, Massachusetts, the home of Mrs. Ray Hall in an exclusive residential area of this suburb of the city of Boston. A meeting of the John Birch Society, not a regularly scheduled monthly meeting, but a meeting prepared staged and rehearsed by the society for our cameras. The participants handpicked, came from seven Boston suburbs. Elmer and Barry, the chapter leader from Needham, led the meeting from a carefully prepared type of incident. Before we begin the study of our agenda items for this evening, I would call your attention to Mr. Welch's thoughts in this month's bulletin, which center around the theme, keep your eye on the ball. You know, we too are involved in a contest.

A contest between freedom-loving human beings everywhere and the forces of communism. This game, if you will allow me to carry that analogy a little bit further, is already in the late innings. And the communists are building up an awesome lead. Just since World War II, for example, the communists have imposed their godless society and slavery to the state over an additional 922 million people. Here in our own country, there is solid evidence of communist sympathizers involved in the civil rights movement and also in the student riots at Berkeley and other of our great universities. So, now with Mr. Welch's sincere thoughts in our minds, let us discuss our agenda of society projects for this month. Number one, of course, is recruiting.

We need more and more people to help sound the alarm. But as Mr. Welch has said, really being patriotic. Every month, Robert Welch, the founder and president of the John Birch Society, writes a bulletin, which is distributed to the membership. This monthly bulletin contains a recurring agenda of items to be covered in the individual chapter meetings. And religious ideals. The next item on our agenda is the movement to impeach Earl Warren. You know, almost all Americans are aware of the decisions which have set free traders to our country. Almost all Americans are aware of the decision which the Supreme Court handled down, which now prevents our children from saying a simple little prayer in school.

Some people may also be aware of the decision in which the Supreme Court reversed 165 years of judicial history and, incidentally, six of its own previous interpretations of the Constitution. When it declared in 1954 that Negro children would be retarded in their development, if they were not mixed with white children in the schools, we do have some additional copies of the impeachment petitions which we are circulating here. And I don't know whether all of you have an adequate supply or how are you coming on that? I would like another impeachment petition. Mine is all completely filled with signatures. I can do some more to them.

Thanks a lot. That's good. Yes, it's a fine one. That's all filled already. Say, Umber. Yes. I just wanted to ask Dicker question. He gave me some of these. Do you remember those matches? Most agenda items are repeated every month, such as the United Nations. Get us out. Let me ask another question. Why is the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights so closely patterned after the Soviet Constitution? Or why, for instance, does the emblem of the United Nations so closely resemble the emblem of the USSR? By the way, we might stop a moment and think about USSR. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Note please, we hear a lot of discussion in our country today about the differences between communism and socialism and yet the communists don't call themselves communists. They call themselves in their own national name, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

So this is one I think to keep well in mind when we start comparing ideologies or someone says, well, he's not a communist. He's just a socialist. Really, I ask you, is there a difference? I was talking to the friend the other day. Do you seem to feel that as long as we have the United Nations, we can talk out any differences of opinion that we might have?

The John Birch Society and Grassroots Right-Wing Mobilization (1965)

The 1960s are famous for the proliferation of left-wing social movements, but the decade also saw grassroots mobilization on the political right. Right-wing organizations in suburban America supported conservatives for local office, fought for control of school boards, and held workshops to educate citizens about the benefits of free market capitalism. One particularly controversial organization was the John Birch Society, a political advocacy group founded by Robert Welch and made up of dozens of local chapters devoted to exposing and combating supposed Communist infiltration in influential American institutions. In a 1965 episode of the National Educational Television series Regional Report focused on the John Birch Society, a suburban Boston chapter holds a special meeting for the benefit of the cameras. In the clip, the chapter leader articulates key aspects of the “Bircher” worldview: that the United Nations and the Civil Rights Movement were both vehicles for Communist influence, and the Supreme Court was undermining sacred American freedoms and principles.

Regional Report | National Educational Television and Radio Center | July 28, 1965 This video clip and associated transcript appear from 03:44 - 07:28 in the full record.

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